Over the last month the new ‘Wardens of the North’ have been fighting with a group of Russian Alliances. TEST Alliance and Circle of Two, whose space border the Russian held regions, have both been fighting a series of skirmish actions primarily against Legion of xXDeathXx, Infinity Space, and Afterlife. On Sunday at 1900 hours a attempt by Legion of xXDeathXx to ‘bait’ out TEST super-carriers erupted into a series of escalations and a fight that saw TEST Alliance completely decimate two Russian fleets.
TEST leadership started receiving reports of a Legion of xXDeathXx/Infinity Space fleet of seven carriers and a lone force auxiliary moving through Vale. According to veteran fleet commander Vily they (TEST) were aware of what the Russians were attempting to do:
“We had ‘intel’ for a couple weeks xXDeathXx may try to bait (our) supers so it was most certainly a trap. “
Vily also further said though the composition of the ‘bait’ fleet was a little surprising:
“It was just a really odd thing to see that kind of a small group of caps roaming around (and) we hadn’t actually realized that was the initial plan”
TEST quickly formed a fleet of interceptors and interdictors and managed to trap the Russian capitals in the system of WBR5-R on the TVN-FM gate. It is significant to note that TVN-FM is TEST Alliance’s capital system in vale and their primary staging system. With the Russian capital fleet tackled TEST Capital Fleet Commander Melzy formed 22 dreadnaughts, jumped into the system, and began destroying the Russian Carriers and Force Auxiliary. (The initial engagement can be seen from the view of the Russian capital fleet below.)
Video Provided by MaDGiiN of Infinity Space
The Russian capitals were quickly destroyed and as they (the TEST capitals) began to extract a Legion of xXDeathXx cyno was lit and bridged in a 150 man hurricane battle cruiser fleet and two Phoenix Class dreadnaughts. The initial fleet of interceptors and interdictors (still on the field) quickly trapped the hurricanes who were in the process of attacking the TEST dreadnaught fleet. TEST managed to extract all but four of it’s Naglafars which quickly fell to the incoming DPS of the Russian battle cruisers. Minutes later the TEST Maelstrom fleet(around 160 ships) under the command of Vily jumped into WBR5-R and entered the fight. The hurricanes quickly fell to the maelstroms with TEST destroying the Russian fleet while only loosing 3 battleships. (The fight can be seen from the TEST side below.)
Video provided courtesy of OmNom of TEST Alliance Please Ignore
The fight saw TEST lose 65 ships (including 4 dreadnaughts and 3 maelstroms) and 18 billion ISK while destroying 237 ships (including 7 carriers, 1 force auxiliary, and two dread-naughts) and inflicting 48.6 Billion ISK in losses to Legion of xXDeathXx. The full battle report can be found here.
